The corridor of Reynold’s Keep stretched out before Oliver. Torchlight flickered over whitewashed stone walls. Dust motes drifted in the bars of light coming through arrow slits in the walls. There was a hush in these halls, occasionally broken only by the clank of armor, the drip of a leaky ceiling, or the scooting feet of a maid. Worse, sometimes the sobbing of a girl came from everywhere and nowhere.

From the moment they had stepped through the portcullis, an air of dread hung thick.

Sir Gillian walked beside Oliver and pushed open a door. His face was grim, and he held his polished helm under his arm.

Halfdan and Sigrid followed closely, their hands never straying far from their weapons. Saj and Charity lingered at the rear, Charity’s eyes lowered as though the weight of this place pressed down on her soul.

They had been shown to a cluster of guest chambers by a silent and long-faced steward, who jumped when a suit of armor walked forward and fell, empty. It came from a line of tarnished suits along a wall. It must not have been secured in place.

One candle burned low in a sconce, and the door hinges creaked as they were ushered inside. Their quarters were spare.

A single window admitted a sliver of pale daylight, a heavy wooden table occupied one corner, and two stuffed mattresses lay on a raised platform. Old tapestries adorned the walls, their colors muted with age and dust.

“Enjoy your time here,” the steward said in a monotone voice. He retreated into the corridor and left them alone.

Oliver ran his hand along the peeling paint. “If I owned all this, I’d try to keep it up?”

Halfdan grunted. “Lords spend too much time keeping appearances. A castle is a place of defense.”

Sigrid examined the tapestries as if sucked into their world. One depicted a forest scene, a stag pursued by a hunter. Another showed a crest of heraldry. One showed Blackwood Tree beneath a crescent moon.

Sir Gillian removed his helm and set it on the table, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Lord Reynold is worse than I imagined. He doesn’t look like he’s slept a day in his life.”

Saj tried to force a small smile. “Cursed or not, I never imagined I’d be sleeping in a castle,” he said, stretching out on a bed.

Charity hovered near the window, light displaying her form. She said nothing but wound a strand of hair around her finger.

Oliver recalled Priest Aelric’s words about Reynold. They had come here to resolve the ghostly torment that seized Reynold’s mind and prevented him from trapping the citizenry in these lands to be crushed by the army.

If he vanquished the ghost, he’d save many lives and look good to the upper caste of society. Who knows, maybe the lord would knight him, and that’d be one step closer to being a king. However, if the army got closer and this wasn’t resolved, he might have to kill the lord.

But where to begin?

A soft knock startled them all. Oliver opened the door to find a maid standing there.

Her apron was smudged with soot, her eyes downcast. She held a pitcher of beer and some stale bread on a wooden tray. “For you,” she said. “My name is Mabel. Is there anything else I can get you?”

Oliver thanked her and said no.

Mabel’s gaze flickered nervously around her as if unseen creatures surrounded them. Before Oliver could question her, Mabel fled, footsteps hurried and light.

Sigrid took the bread and ale and distributed them. They ate in silence. The bread was hard, the beer sour, but after recent ordeals, it was good.

Evening fell swiftly outside, and the corridor beyond their room remained quiet. At length, Halfdan said, “I’ll take the first watch at the door.” He sat against the closed door, pulled out a whetstone, and sharpened his axe with a gentle scraping sound. “Get some sleep before dark. The night may be our best chance of finding the troubled spirit.”

Saj tried to lighten the mood with a joke about a man who married a camel, but he got no more than a sharp exhale through Sigrid's nostrils.

Charity sat on the edge of one mattress, hands folded in her lap, and closed her eyes.

Oliver felt restless and sat up.

Haldan lay near the door, snoring.

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If they were to help Lord Reynold, they needed answers. He wondered if the staff knew anything. Opening the door quietly, he found the hallway still and empty. A single torch died to nothing but embers at the far end.

He ventured out, swordstaff hitting a rug with a soft thud. As he passed door after door, he noticed faint scratches on the stone walls, old stains that might have been wine, or perhaps old blood. He scraped it with a fingernail, and flakes peeled away.

At the far end of the corridor, a narrower passage led upwards, curving along the tower. Here the air drafted upward. Each step echoed softly on worn steps. The presence of something unseen pressed at his mind, but it must be his imagination.

Look at your goddamn notifications.

The text faded away on his display, and he looked at his messages. Someone had been trying to get a hold of him, but who? He replied. Who is this?

It’s Eldrin. Listen, I’ve learned so much. Backdoors are built into the System, and most of the security prevents Players from accessing things they shouldn’t. For NPCs, it’s mostly security through obscurity.

So what did you learn?

Just watch. You’re about to get a new objective.

The objective screen had been glitchy, and he’d seen a few popups as he passed locations. His presence pulled them to him like a magnet, but only Survive the Hunt and Time Crystal remained. The first was complete, and the second was active. Now, a new one blipped into the list. Become King of Halshan.

He brought up the map and found the castle up north of him. Eldrin was a fucking genius.

Good luck, Oliver. There’s more to come.

Oliver closed the display and tried to focus on the problem at hand. The eerie feeling crept back up his spine.

Midway up the staircase, he paused at a landing. A small door stood ajar, leading into a storage room. Curiosity drew him inside. The chamber smelled of old linens and lavender gone stale. Stacks of blankets, old curtains, and moth-eaten rugs were piled high.

As he moved a dusty curtain aside, he glimpsed a cracked wooden chest. The lid hung askew, a scrap of cloth caught in its hinge. Kneeling, Oliver pried it open. Inside, amid tiny clothes and wooden toys, he found a letter, sealed once with a wax crest now broken, lay among dried flowers and a comb missing several teeth.

He unfolded the letter. The handwriting was elegant:

Oliver read on, each word sending chills down his spine. Lady Bridget’s letter to her daughter, Lilly, after the child had passed. You, Sir Gillian, and I will find each other in the afterlife.

Footsteps in the stairwell made him freeze. Quickly, he slipped the letter inside his tunic and rose quietly, stepping behind a stack of linens. He peered around the corner.

A maid walked by with a candle guiding her way. She was lanky, and her face was dotted with freckles.

He wanted to know more about Bridget, so he walked up and started talking to her.

She jumped at the sight of him. The white half-mask and swordstaff probably didn’t help. She recognized him as one of the adventurers and introduced herself as Janet. “The father of Bridget’s daughter was none other than Leonard, Lord Reynold’s son.”

The letter made little sense then. “Is Sir Gillian related to Bridget?”

“No, not at all. They shared many interests and talked more than Leonard liked, but Sir Gillian is a paladin who has devoted himself to the church.”

Interesting, they were fucking. “How did Bridget die?”

“She passed in her sleep. Strange that, a healthy woman.”

He thanked the maid for her time and returned to his companions, who sat around the table in their chambers.

“Where have you been?” Saj asked, noting Oliver’s thoughtful expression.

Oliver took a seat. “I went exploring and didn’t run into any ghosts.”

Halfdan touched his sharpened axe. “Oh, it’s here. I can sense it.”

Sigrid’s eyes narrowed. “Sir Gillian says it’s a ghost of Reynold’s granddaughter, and she fell out of a tree. I bet there’s more to it than that, or else why would she haunt this place?”

Oliver pulled out the letter, sat it down, and recounted the interaction with the maid. “There’s a pretty good chance she’s Gillian’s, but that doesn’t explain why she would be pushed from a tree if that happened.”

Saj shook his head slowly. “This complicates matters. He invited us here.”

Charity raised her gaze, tears glistening. “I can feel the girl’s pain. I think she’s in here.”

Oliver glanced around the room. “I hope,” he was going to say not, but a child made of pure light walked through the wall, and the word stuck in his throat.

The girl reached out a hand.

Oliver didn’t believe in ghosts, and he didn’t believe in this place either, but there lies a vast chasm between what the mind knows and what the body feels. His heart thumped in his chest, and he struggled to touch her hand with his.

The room vanished, replaced by a forest clearing where an unnaturally large oak tree grew. Lilly wasn’t made of light but a flesh and blood girl crawling up the tree. A man pointed and commanded her to climb.

The ghost’s voice wrapped around Oliver. “He made me climb higher each time. I said I was scared but never high enough for him.”

The green forest was replaced by the black of night and an angry, spectral face barring its teeth and shooting forward.

He fell back and hit the floor.

The apparition moved through him and out of the room.

Saj’s eyes were completely round. “It’s not too late to leave. I don’t think we’re qualified for this.”

Oliver picked himself up. “I don’t completely disagree with you.” He picked up his chair and sat at the table again. “I don’t know what I say for sure, but I think Leonard forced Lilly to climb a really big tree and kept making her go higher and higher.”